With the widespread use of golf driving ranges there has come a need for devices that can rapidly pick up golf balls lying on the ground over a sizeable area of several acres. It is necessary for the proprietor of such a range to pick up hundreds or thousands of golf balls several times a day, wash them, and package them for reuse. Many different types of apparatus have been suggested although all generally involve a wheeled cart that can be rolled over the area, preferably pushed by a small electric or gasoline powered vehicle driven by a person. The method of picking up the balls has taken many different designs, although the most popular seem to be those shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,365,540; 3,630,401; and 3,856,165. The varieties of design have been numerous, but there remained several reasons why improvements were still necessary. For example, some designs were too heavy and tended to mash some golf balls into the ground instead of picking them up. Other designs did not pick up enough golf balls in one pass over the area, and therefore, were not efficient. My patent U.S. Pat. No. 4,792,271 solves these problems by providing a novel, efficient, light weight retrieval device. Subsequent research, however, has lead to still further improvements.
It is an object of this invention to provide a novel and efficient apparatus for picking up large numbers of golf balls in one sweep of the area and which may be turned with ease. It is another object of this invention to provide an improved light weight golf ball retriever. A further object is to provide improved wheels to such retriever which wheels are protected and are part of the pick-up capability of the retriever. Still other objects will become apparent from the more detailed description which follows.